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Monday, October 15, 2012

Retail Design – Play of Arches

Text & Photography: Antonino
Cardillo

The
arch, primary icon of architecture, archetype of construction and protection,
and symbol of Italy throughout history, in its airy, slender variant, codified
by 14th century Italian painting and often cited by De Chirico, rediscovers its
double syntactic value of connection and separation of parts in this retail project.

Designed by Ar. Antonino Cardillo and spread across
350 sq. metres, the new retail store in Milan, Italy, appears to the
visitor almost as an enchanted palace set in a rationalist building. As in the
royal stable of Meknes or the mosque of Cordoba, a dense succession of parallel
arches define a perspective.

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The wall pierced by the sequence of
arches gives rise to meandering spaces and exhibition areas and is augmented by
technological lighting and climate-controlled design. Set in a metre square grid,
each arched aperture articulates the space giving it multiplicity of uses:
walkway, alcove for mannequins, displays, frontal and lateral hanging rail,
etc.

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Light defines the space. The existing
ceilings, free from the dazzle of down-lighters, are laid out limpidly in deep
blue, whose blurred reflections record the luminous movement beneath. On the
first floor, a corona of light radiates towards the ceiling from the
interrupted walls of the rooms, defining their form. For the rest, the light is
emitted and articulated by the displays inside the alcoves, which incorporate,
above and below the floor, banks of LEDs focussed on objects, giving them
prominence.

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A
delicate balancing of pearlescent grays,
light mauve greens, intense magenta, crystalline marbles, real and false, as in
a toy; and a flat blue, painted throughout the
structure, forms the palette of the scenario.Thus, the colouredgrays of the architecture are
underpinned by the changing colours of the clothes and accessories.

Inspiration

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Lastly, returning to
classical iconography, the brand is displayed at the focal points of the
building: at the rear of the stairs on the
ground floor, just after the exit, and in the two opposing apses of the long
gallery on the first floor.

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Antonino Cardillo is an
itinerant Italian architect. Active worldwide, through his works he explores
the bonds between ancient and modern languages. His architectonic spaces
attempt to get to a new syncretic synthesis, which reconciles different world
views, beliefs, traditions and cultures: he interprets architecture as a way to
connect people.